All I have to say is I'm annoyed the domain is io.google instead of google.io. I mean I get they gotta flex the notion that they have TLD us peasants don't get to use, but the conf's name is Google IO not IO Google.
There's some political baggage associated with the .io TLD since it's for the British Indian Ocean Territory, an area whose inhabitants were forcibly removed to build a military base.
I'd say the .google is the biggest flex i've seen in a while, so why not just use it
It's a faux pas to flex your own massive amounts of power in places where it doesn't really matter all that much. Then again, Google has pretty much embraced their role as a comic book villain these days.